Wonderlust
by Arbitrary Escape
Summary: Growing up is learning to live with the evils of the world, even when there's no light to make every day brighter. Four perspectives of five intertwined lives, all on a typical night.


Summary: Growing up is learning to live with the evils of the world, even when there's no light to make every day brighter. Four perspectives of five intertwined lives, all on a typical night.

Rating: T (for the darker trains of thought)

Characters: Hayama Hayato, Hikigaya Hachiman, Isshiki Iroha, Yukinoshita Haruno, minor Yukino

Tags: one-sided loves, angst, tragedy, drama, introspection, reflection, regret, remorse, gen, & slice of life

* * *

 **Disclaimer: I do not own these characters; they are property of Watari Wataru.**

* * *

The world was often unfair, and in some ways, blessings were the cruelest things there could be. Hayama Hayato found that out earlier in life. Hikigaya Hachiman eventually accepted it.

Irony was also one of the world's most cruel tricksters, but in this case, it spared them some and only twisted the knives an inch or two, letting the blades sink and drill a little more - not that it would truly break either man. They had, after all, not expected to become some of one another's best friends.

But that was they way life worked sometimes. And it was odd to anyone who knew them in high school that this would happen, especially anyone who knew either or both of these men very well at that particular time in their lives. And it remained a mystery for the rest of their lives, though it eventually became an accepted fact that 'opposites attract,' and as such, their differing personalities drew them together.

All five of their rather select group of 'friends' (and lovers) knew the truth, however.

The expression 'knowledge is power' might come to mind; but just having knowledge and no ability to do anything with it was the trap that Hayama Hayato had lived with all his life. It just happened that Hikigaya was the only person who could empathize with his pains.

After all, they married the person the other loved.

* * *

" _Hayama-senpai… no, H-Hayato…" her fingers twisted around strands of hair nervously, her face was red with fear, her eyes were wet and her voice cracked. She placed a hand over her stomach. "I'm keeping it."_

* * *

Isshiki Iroha had always known that she was infatuated with Hayama Hayato. She made no secret of it. Ever since she was a girl of fifteen, she had her eyes set on him. Her heart, she would always admit, seemed to tingle when he was in her presence. She wanted him more than anything, anyone, and she wanted him always.

It was silly, frankly speaking, but she had indulged that part of herself with an unhealthy, wanton craving that sparked violently, almost dangerously, without any sort of relent. And it was something that was foreign to her because she had dated boys in middle school, played them with her cuteness and gotten used to kissing and dating and gifts, but had honestly been bored of the them because they weren't so interesting.

Hayato was nothing, but he became everything.

She remembered meeting Hayato for the first time, watching him play football as he commanded the field and yelled at his team, only thinking that he was a decent athlete. After the game, she saw him leave his teammates for his clique of friends and watched them for some small amount of time, she honestly could not recall how long but it never felt like much, and noticed how fake his smile was yet how gentle his eyes were.

A sudden rushing of heat to her cheeks and pounding of her heart were never in any calculation for her beforehand; she remembered how her palms cupped her own cheeks to verify the fact that she was radiating warmth. She blinked as she watched him back then and felt such a strong pull towards him that she knew she had to find out more about him.

It wasn't unusual for something to catch her fancy; but it was unusual that she was willing to brood on it. Nevertheless, she passed it off for a 'spur-of-the-moment' sort of puppy-love that she felt the urge to indulge.

Three days later and she had dumped her boyfriend of the time. His tears and sputtering were as distant as his blurred face and the touch of his lips. One week after that and she somehow weaseled her way into becoming the manager of the boys' football team - the beginning of what would be her many plans and plots that a certain senpai considered part of her 'foxy' traits.

Hachiman, she thought blissfully. He was a keeper, really.

There was a certain something about that rotten-eyed friend who became dear to her despite all the troubles she caused him. Unlike Hayato, who, despite his rather bland personality and superior exterior, this person was boring on the outside but exceedingly bright on the inside. He was fascinating because she felt that he and Hayato fit one another, not as two halves to a whole, but sort of like two of a matching pair that worked well in tandem with each other.

The lightness of her husband's hair was opposite of Hachiman's dark rivets, and yet, these complementary facts only made her decision more fitting, she thought to herself. She loved the light of day; she loved the vibrancy that came with her status, the way she had to act, the way Hayato chose to live. Ironically, of course, it was in the midst of night that she was most happy. Ironic that, for all his pandering, Hachiman was no darker than Hayato except where it mattered the most - his view, his philosophy, his actions.

At first, she kept hanging around him and wanting to see him near Hayato because of how they acted together and how different their appeals were. But then she started to see how different their treatments of her were.

If she were to be completely honest, the younger version of her definitely loved having Hachiman around more than Hayato because he made her feel all giddy on the inside with the way he cared for her, the way he took the time to pause and think about what she wanted or what she needed. He looked at her like the Greeks saw earth and how the Romans viewed the stars. It was special, she would definitely admit. But even then, it was nowhere near enough, despite being more than anything Hayato ever gave her.

It made very little sense, even to her. But it, no; _he_ was never what she wanted. All of that was squashed before her desire to have Hayato become hers. Hers, forever.

And she got him. A slight hum left her lips as she curled around her husband's side and looked at his sleeping face. His locks were longer than they were in the past, unkempt and kissing his skin with regal disorder. The lines on his face seemed to recede slightly, and his lips were not forced into any unnatural position. Perfect, she thought to herself. Still perfect. It was sad, in some ways, that this was the only time she saw his expression fold into one of calm and peace, but victories came both small and large.

Of course, it wasn't that she was completely without any cares at all for the fact that she, essentially, abandoned her beloved 'Senpai' for Hayato.

She had a weight on her heart, she was only human after all, that tangled with her every now and then, and that was some small portion of her that spoke up, questioning her life's choices; she saw how unhappy he was all the time, even if he managed to mask the majority of his unhappiness.

Even if she hadn't gotten him, she felt, there was no way he would have gotten Haruno. She managed to justify everything again, to calm herself. Everything was as it should be, she told herself.

There were days where she knew that he thought about his life and thought about how she felt throughout the entirety of their relationship and knowing one another; the questions would always be on the tip of his tongue, but they would never leave his lips.

He was never one to betray his innermost thoughts to anyone who was not named Hikigaya Hachiman.

A portion of her was enraged by that. But she did not waver in the face of this dismissal and constant rejection. She did not regret because there was simply nothing that made her truly ever wish to renounce life (not that it was even possible). She did not doubt, for dreams were delusional ambitions unless one could craft them and engrave them into the fold of reality as she had. And so, as much as Hikigaya Hachiman wanted her, she did not want him. The problems and qualms she had about living out her life with the choices she had made were always overturned by the euphoric sense of victory she felt as she stared in the mirror each morning and looked around her whenever she was in public and at home.

Her fingers reached out to stroke her husband's hair and giggled. Though the years had been less kind to him than she would have liked, she was satisfied with how, funnily enough, his face was still the princely sort she had always dreamed of.

Absentmindedly, her thoughts lingered on the contrast between the two most important men in her life. She could not help but compare his face to the stern disposition on her 'beloved' senpai's skin, one which seemed to remain constant but only grow with heavy gauntness. He had grown up to have such a mature air about him, despite his facial expression being rather displeasing. It was some sort of magnanimous confidence that flared up in his limbs and the way he carried himself, to the point that it made him, in some abnormal fashion, handsome and charming. Inviting, even.

It was funny that, despite never actually desiring Hachiman that way, she thought about him all the time, if only to use him as a foil to everything she earned. He was a passionate man who fully committed to everything he wanted - Hayato was patiently waiting to take his time before he acted here and there, always with small-town touches unless he had to win it all. Hachiman was quiet in contrast to Hayato's natural charisma that forced others to have conversations revolve around him.

Whereas Hayama Hayato turned to sports for an outlet, Hikigaya Hachiman forced his way into private philosophy, letting his artistic talents flourish in unpublished volumes that lined the walls of his home office. The former was always relaxed, but never calm. The latter was always in motion, but always at ease with the way the river of life went.

There was just something special about Hachiman that drew Iroha to him from the moment they met; it manifested itself in him more and more, she realized, as she continued to pester him for help. Problems were just a part of life to him, and puzzles that were easily solved.

The methodical precision by which Hachiman lived was almost mystically enticing. Her mind briefly wandered towards how she won over 'the false knight of the realm' and discarded this practitioner of 'modern magic.' The thoughts led her on a trip down memory lane, a comforting sensation like the buzz of soft sleep and a good glass of wine.

She hummed a slow buzz as she leaned back on the softness of her headboard and thought about her own efforts to win over the glorified prize, the 'prince' of Chiba. It never ceased to amaze her that everything went as well as it did, but she knew that, for all intents and purposes, things might have been different in how they happened, but she would have won in the end.

Despite her airheadedness and social fluttering, Isshiki Iroha was very persistent as a girl, but also rather meticulous. She was not stupid by any means and always knew that Hachiman had his eye on her, ever since she walked into his life; and because she was not stupid, she knew that over a short span of time, he had fallen in love with her though he had yet to recognize it. And that was what prompted her to act quickly with Hayato - she could not risk her plans because there was no way she would be a loser. She refused to give herself the chance of failing by falling in love with anyone else, even if Hachiman was the most interesting person on the planet.

She would have won because she would have done it or died trying: she was just that kind of person, she acknowledged. Her eyes closed and she felt the tiredness of night start to fall upon her frame. She took one last look at her husband and began to lose herself to sleep.

Isshiki Iroha had been extremely cunning; and she was rewarded for doing things that no normal person would dare to do. And that's what made her different. That's what made her better, she told herself, her final train of thought as she drifted off. She had refused to let him go and try to reach for Yukinoshita Haruno, even if she had to sell her soul to betray the only man in the world who loved her unconditionally.

A frown decorated her face as it pressed into the pillow. Thinking about having to do what she did, she could never completely bury the guilt she felt, and she always made sure to avoid it by any means, whether it was sex, alcohol, a busy life, or pointless hobbies.

Still, if there was a lesson she learned from the elder Yukinoshita sibling, it was the fact that cruelty and cunning often came hand-in-hand, along with creativity. It was a lesson that was beaten into her by her parents as well as her peers. And she had played her part well, because Iroha never lost anything she held in the palm of her hands. Never.

* * *

 _A fist rammed into his face and he made no motion to stop it. He hit the brick behind him with a rough gasp and slid down to the concrete floor with a wheeze._

" _God_ damn _it, Hayama; what the actual fuck were you thinking?" His voice did not break, but it shook with the rage of ten thousand legions - whether it was anger for her sake or for his own, he could not tell. His face was, unlike any time before, completely and perfectly legible. He felt the anger in the air and for a brief second was afraid of Hikigaya acting like his namesake, a god of war, hell-bent on tearing apart someone who sacrilegiously trespassed on holy ground._

 _When he looked up, he could only feel his own heart sinking. It was the first time he had ever seen Hikigaya Hachiman cry. His mind also told him that this was the first he had even seen the boy be anything other than annoyed or slightly happy - and that anger, sadly, suited his disposition in a way that made his frame shake with some tragic vibe. Redness dusted the other boy's cheeks and his eyes, no matter how ugly, had never seemed so sincere and pure before._

 _An incoherent sound left his throat. Hayama thought it sounded rather like a dying animal._

 _Something was crumbling inside him, he thought to himself. He bit his tongue to keep in check. He didn't want to speak without any forethought; there was no one else here and in this unimpeded space between two budding men, there was a war-ground of conflict that sprouted overnight. Keeping his eyes trained on the way the other boy carried himself taught him more about human expression than he thought was possible._

 _That was when Hayama recognized that this level of hurt was entirely foreign to Hikigaya and he let the boy get in another hit - a left - before he asked him, "Are you done?" His voice was coarse and dry, but he managed to get the other to calm down, if only for the moment. Hikigaya's face turned away, as if he was afraid to look at him. He wanted to say sorry; but both of them knew that it would be artificial. They both hated the artificial._

 _This was the first time that Hayama Hayato had ever seen Hikigaya speechless. He stood there unmoving, but breath crackling with a mixture of displeasure, envy, ferocity, and resignation. He raised his fist as if to strike him again, only to have it slowly settle down by his side. The blood on his hands and the obvious tearing of skin made him think that there was something mystical about the way humans crumble. There was nothing more than the frankness of fresh honesty that came with the bluntness of brutal truth and cold-cut facts, and Hikigaya seemed to be out-of-place on the receiving end of it._

' _Silence is pervasive;' it was an old cliche, but it fit here._

 _Neither of them said anything for some time because he could not express himself and the only audible sounds Hikigaya could make were his cries of a cross between screams, sniffles, and words. It was painful seeing someone so powerful fall to his knees and curl up on himself. Hayama's heart had never felt for another human so much, and it was caught in his throat. Think, he asked himself. What could he do?_

 _It was a curious train of thought that was untouched by any taint: an honest evaluation of his options because that was what Hikigaya deserved._

 _Words would, without fail, betray him here - and what could he honestly tell Hikigaya that wasn't just some sad story or some falsity? How could he explain that she had accosted him for a date, just one chance, which happened to lead them to the mall and back to her house with them tangled between the sheets, without explaining his role (or lack of one) in refusing her? Because the truth was that he didn't resist. And that all these things did happen. He had no idea how he had let his guard down so completely because he knew he wasn't drugged._

 _The only conclusion his numbing brain could come up with was that he, on some level,_ wanted _things to happen. He was waiting for a chance for things to change, for the planes of his life to intersect and fumble askew. And they did. He had, for once in his life, forgotten and ignored the consequences of actions, particularly that of his own making, because he wanted to be just like everyone else. And it happened in a way that he could not have let happened._

 _Wasn't that a terrifying thought, he told himself. That even in the damnedest of times, Hayama Hayato was some Superman who could do things no one else could. Mess up in ways that shouldn't even exist as options to him, that was. He dragged himself from his thoughts and looked across from himself._

 _He looked at how pathetic Hikigaya had become, and, a small part of him was overwhelming with some sick, cruel satisfaction as this boy in front of him could not keep himself together. He felt that it was empowering, in some manner, that he was able to crush someone he had always felt so inferior to, but he had to act before the rift was set in stone._

 _Unluckily for him, the harshness of his reality began to settle, and the gravity of it all touched him with a friction that made him feel like he was burning from the inside out. The burdens of his actions began to really sink as he thought about what he could do for his once-enemy. Once-enemy because he had, effectively, won both a battle and the war; one that neither of them first understood wasn't really a contest between the two, but the choosings of an amused, ambitious underclassman._

 _His mouth made to move; his brain did not._

 _It took him an uncomfortable twenty minutes before he had decided. Rather than mincing words, he went with the only apology he could show - just as Hikigaya had expressed something new for the first time in his life, so did he. His forehead touched pavement and he heard his peer cry; cry, because he understood what it meant for Hayama to do this. Cry, because he knew that Hayama, above all else, was genuine in this at the very least._

* * *

Everyone knew that Isshiki Iroha had her charms; but none of them truly understood her like Hikigaya Hachiman - to this very day, he would tell everyone that she might have Hayama Hayato as her husband, but he was the one who knew all the tricks up her sleeves.

He hated that he did. Because in some ways, it made him realize how parallel she was to his wife, a woman whom he still could not say the words " _I'm in love with you"_ to.

His thoughts turned from his wife and to the woman he kept next to him, his sight filled with a sea of moonless sky, a rich black shade that reveled in its sleek shine. A hand ran through her hair and he felt himself breathing a little more easily.

He felt the warmth of his lover as he lay aside her in bed and he reached a hand to cup her pale cheek. It was odd that he would wed one sister but turn to the other in his moments of freedom. Despite that, both of them, but, more importantly Yukino, understood - she also readily accepted that she was not his first choice and never would be, just as he acknowledged that he was not hers.

A fist clenched as he numbingly tried to feel his fingers and attempted to keep them from shaking. He closed his eyes and let himself steady his breathing, opened them and ran his fingers through her locks once more. She was beautiful, he admitted. So beautiful.

Everything about her was a match for him, truthfully speaking. From looks to wit, and personality to emotional understanding.

If only she had gotten to him first, he sometimes thought, and he her, they could have been something more; but she had not. She never would be.

His heart went out to her; first and foremost because they were friends, second, because it so happened that the world never truly cracked the monster of logic who, by some strange means, always seemed to care for people beyond any normal standards.

Their relationship together transcended the social norms by such a wide margin. They had far too few words and too little space to accurately describe the level of intimacy they felt with one another. They had been, on numerous occasions, interviewed individually and together about the quality of their closeness; and each time, they simply looked at one another and laughed.

Words could not cover the distance of what it meant to be Hachiman and Yukino, he once said absentmindedly.

Rumors, of course, sought to flourish, but strangely enough, neither his, his wife's, or his sister-in-law's businesses declined or suffered any because of it; a blessing, he supposed, that was caught and entangled in their web of orderly chaos.

It was a shame in some ways because, unfortunately, he did not hate his wife. On the contrary: he loved her, loved her deeply in his own manner unique to her regards. Haruno was a wonderful woman, despite her faults; she was a generous mother, a model one, in stark difference to her own. He would never have guessed that the she could be so, but she was. She had grown tremendously but still retained most of the traits that made her so lovable as a beautiful youth.

And yet, for all that glory, second place was her eternal trophy.

That was not to say she was so far behind, or even remote in his life. His wife had become close to him in ways that a much younger Hachiman would have not only scoffed at and rejected, but would have readily considered to be outside the realms of possibility for a loner such as himself. Though, to be fair, Haruno's decision to intervene in his life and become a part of it was nothing short of a miracle, and it was honestly something that could only really be described as, overall, 'positive.'

Haruno used to wake him up whenever he was late, lay sheets over his couch-ridden body, drive him to places and take him out. She waited for him to stop speaking when he needed to vent, she allowed him to speak his entire mind. She kissed him when he needed something tangible; she loved him when he wanted the visceral.

She did things for him that no one else but her could do.

And yet, he could not trust her like he trusted Yukino. He had opened up some depths about him and she had taken all of him in with stride, but there was some sort of gap between what she wanted from him and what he knew he was. While she knew from the very start, he had warned her, he always made sure to tell her over and over again that it wasn't her. It was never her fault, he continuously stressed, and made up for it in ways that a man, a husband, could. If anything, no one could doubt that, regardless of their issues, they were a legitimate couple - one with all the promises of good times and bad.

She loved him with all her heart and made due with what she had. He returned her favor with as much as he could spare. Her smiles, he thought, were some of the brightest things in his life; and when she wanted to hug him, hold him, touch him, she had him all to herself and he trusted her with that much. He trusted her because she was dear to him, but there were just some things that left him numb when she was about him, and he had tried to explain to her what it felt like. It never worked.

While it never led to any open argument, he eventually found himself caught up in his wife's younger sister because Yukino succeeded in areas where her older sister could not.

It was a hollow victory for the younger sister, however, and everyone who saw it knew it; one that Haruno acknowledged but cared far too little about.

Unlike many of her peers and friends, Yukinoshita Yukino had never married. The very idea was something she was uncomfortable with since childhood. Marriage was something that she was brought up to resent, not just from looking at the broken bonds in her family, but because all the people she grew up around were the same - even if they had functioning units, the concept of marriage was different between her fancy romances and reality.

Because unfortunately for members of high society, marriage was a tool of power and prestige, meant to forge the bonds of business and prosperity. Marriage, to her, meant sacrifice for gain; but none of the positives, or negatives, gave her reason to embrace it. She had always refuted proposals and offers and had effectively brushed off her parents' wishes for good when she declared she would make sure that, should she be pressed too far, she would crush the image and lineage of the Yukinoshitas'.

Something that always left him with a bitter grin was Yukino's scoff and walking out on her parents as she told them off about how pitiful their definition and perception of marriage was to her. Her parting words never made an impression on them because they had never been taught to love marriage.

Love in their kind of marriage was a joke; truthfully speaking, love in marriage was still a young concept of only a few centuries, and that was mostly in the West. Here, it held even less power. And that was the cruel reality that graced Yukino's life, ever since birth - a fact which marred her heart with a scar so large, she had never recovered from it.

He winced at the thought; Komachi had grown up always wistfully wishing for relationships of genuine love and kindness and had high hopes for both herself and her brother. Reality, however, had different plans for him. And for Yukino.

The younger Yukinoshita had only ever loved two people, and sadly, she had been in love with the only one of those two who could never be her partner. He looked at her sleeping form and even though her eyes were closed, he thought about how beautiful her eyes were, and how beautiful his were not. Yukino was a lot of things that he could be in love with but was not. She had everything someone could want in a partner. Money. Intelligence. Authority. Wit. Attractiveness was something that was a given with her, and while he was never in love with her, they were at least drawn to one another, both physically and mentally.

The thought made his smile turn melancholy. _Is this a dagger which I see before me, the handle toward my hand?_ Those lines pretty much captured the essence of Yukino's life, and even though he saw her relaxed expressions, he could tell that the haunting regret always lay in front of her, taunting her, tempting her to take it and go down a different path.

But she refused it with all her might, knowing that she condemned herself further, to a life of mutual misery - which, in some ways, definitely hinted at her desperate need for masochism in her life (her lifestyle was pretty much the counterexample to 'happiness') - because she refused to let him suffer alone. And Hayato, to some extent. It was strange to him that she, too, had also eventually reconciled with Hayato, but not entirely, as they still could not bear one another's presence for long. Instead, she continued to trust the only constant that loaned his pains and promises to her bidding just as she did to him.

In many ways, to the both of them, it was laughable because out of any man in the world who could have been her friend and lover, it had come down to him, Hikigaya Hachiman, something he used to tease her about, considering their early friendship. They had only become fully intimate once they learned that there was no deeper way for them to be intertwined, even if they weren't who the other fully desired.

The affair sprang from the average drunken escapade between two friends who confessed that their adult lives were lacking mutual respect and love, the 'love that seemed to define modern teenage concern' he called it. He remembered some laughing and some touching, some hugging. The feel of flesh to flesh was something he remembered only when he woke with a back against his chest that he definitely had not seen that naked before.

He never once blamed Yukino for his infidelity, mostly because he remembered that he was the key factor in instigating their mutual sin.

She teased him back, once, he recalled with a slight smile, about being the only man in the world who could afford to touch something so priceless.

There weren't any words to describe how it felt with her, he supposed. Half full was half empty, and yet, there was something distinct about the way they interacted that was just not the same with his wife.

They were both loners in the strictest sense of the word - something that was truly unique to the two of them in their pentagon of paramours. For the longest time, they were all the other had and in the ending phases of high school, they stuck together behind the backs of everyone else, quietly talking alone in the clubroom, where no one else but Yui, and, occasionally, Iroha, would find them.

Those were bitter times; some days were brilliant, and others not so much. He recalled how much it hurt that year, to find Iroha barging into the room with a ring he could never afford or an expression of bliss he knew he would never elicit. His participation in anything concerning her had waned and at the time, his friendships with both Yuigahama and Yukino had taken quite a hit.

Back then, he had been trapped in the bubble of adolescent wonders that kept him safe from harm; but over the course of that school year, he had eventually opened up a little more to Yukino and somehow found the ability to gather acquaintances (not friends, no). His grades started improving and his relationship with Komachi had grown even more powerful; his future seemed to be heading in a better direction than it had been earlier. He was even able to engage in 'small-talk,' though only with Yui. He seemed so normal, fine, better; at least, in contrast to his previous arrangement.

In fact, Shizuka had, at the time, been so surprised not only with his social growth that she herself was able to become somewhat of a friend to him. She had been overjoyed that his other grades rose to a little more than average, which was quite a feat considering how close he once was to last in all his sciences, and she started meeting with him outside of school and helped him with 'learning how to college.'

But life was not all sunshine and rainbows, even then; no, that had only been the beginning of what would be a modern-day remake of Greecian horror. It led with a stunningly, blindingly, gorgeous outset where tragedy had not yet struck and there was no need to begin with a beautiful introduction _in media res_. Turns, however, hit hard years after high school, and they struck fast. Albeit there was little death involved, there was quite the number of melodramatic political decisions and much Machiavellian mindset that sustained their farce.

For him, these memories were not the strongest, but they were some of the most important. 'You are what you eat;' for young Hachiman, his food was his social domain, and he was thoroughly nourished by the factors that twisted his world views.

He stifled a small sob as he lay his head against the sheets: a forbidden mourning. He knew he shouldn't be reflecting so much on things that happened, but the cycle of bottles, Haruno, Yukino, and Hayato always seemed to make him feel slightly disgusted with himself. Seeing Iroha didn't help. Neither did his morning shave.

Thinking about his life was always painful, not just because he was hurt about his position; it was because he was so fortunate that it was absolutely brutal. It took some time to get used to the way his life was, but even he had to admit that it was not the worst it could be. And it never had been.

From the fact that he had Yukino, Haruno, Komachi, and Hayato in his life to the truth that he was a success in his own eyes, everything just seemed so overwhelming as he thought about how undeserved it all was.

His lonely naivete and child perspective was crushed by the overwhelming cynicism of reality and high society as he truly became more and more acquainted with people of the Yukinoshitas' stature and above. In fact, even just finishing high school made him see that everyone suffered, equally, and he had been living in a bubble for his entire life. Yes, he had been hurt; yes, he realized the truth of the world. But he was not the only one to do so. And all the problems of the world would not ignore him, even if he ignored them.

The world was not a fair place; and when he realized how fair he had it, all the unfairness only seemed even worse. After all, he grimaced, complaining about the cruelty of the world was a right of free speech; but having such a good life thus far was coincidence and privilege. Everything changed, though, when he realized he was, briefly, failing university in his third year, when a slew of incidents, namely the death of his parents and an unfortunate series of papers and exams, caused him to break down because he also had to juggle the fact that Komachi hadn't been able to find a full-time career at that point.

Haruno came tumbling into his life with a force that rivaled hurricanes.

When it happened, his thoughts were a jumbled mess of incoherency that made his judgment lacking; and yet, he found that he was satisfied with the results. He had only wished that he had the foresight and full will to embrace what was about to come upon him. But once she pulled the 'little sister' card, that was when Haruno had him trapped.

He curled around his lover, draped an arm over her midsection and hugged her. Tightly but not enough to disturb her. His whisper of "Goodnight, Yukino," went unheard as he tried to force darkness unto his eyes.

* * *

" _You know, it doesn't have to be this difficult, Hachiman." Her smile was beautiful and so was the rest of her face; she looked at him with such mirth that he was taken aback. It was odd, he thought, that she wanted to still hang out with him despite the fact that he barely knew her from high school and only occasionally met up with her (once a month) ever since they had first met. He supposed that he was the kind of person who made impressions, albeit they were generally the horrible kind._

" _Hm?" He asked in his casually nonchalant norm. He wasn't a fool, he knew she was up to something. His tired eyes remained on her as she kept her silence for a minute, wondering how she should approach the topic. She bit her lip in a playful way that caught his eye; he wasn't ashamed that his gaze was drawn to the act. She knew she was attractive. More importantly, she knew that she could use it. "What do you want, Haruno?"_

 _She giggled a bit. "Oh, I'm just thinking about you, you know? I've heard about what's been going on lately." Her face took on a sombre vibe, and, almost impossibly, lines and shadows seemed to mar the perfection of Yukinoshita Haruno, Chiba's most infamous young lady. It startled him because he had never seen her look anything less than the best. Startled him because she was someone who he knew could handle pressure, could do, get, whatever she wanted, even if she had to struggle for it with her life._

 _In true Hikigaya Hachiman fashion, he laid aside his book and his life's problems for the moment. "What's wrong, Haruno?" She looked away from him and he saw her flush red._

 _When she turned back to face him, a small smile fit her expression. "I was thinking that… after all this time, we've been getting closer, haven't we?" He nodded; she wasn't wrong - it had been nearly half a decade since they first met, and their monthly meetings gave him some insight on her life, just as she began to pick up more and more about him. "Well," she sucked in her breath, as if gathering courage for her next move._

" _Will you marry me?"_

 _Pause. Blink. Repeat. He choked on his tea - he dared not spit it out - and coughed roughly. For him, it was so out of the blue for her to be so upfront and even moreso with a topic that was undoubtedly critical._

" _Excuse me?" His voice was brittle, cracking with only the slightest intonations. The weariness of his current situation began to weigh on him along with the metaphorical explosion she had unleashed on his psyche. "Could you repeat that, Haruno? Actually, no don't." He pinched the bridge of his nose and closed his eyes._

" _Why me?" Simple, direct, and necessary. She shivered and winked at him. She did not respond immediately, and instead opted to drag her cup of tea to her lips. After she set it down, she motioned him to sit next to her as opposed to across from her. He sighed and did as she wanted; he doubted he'd get anywhere quicker if he didn't listen to her childish request._

 _He tried not to flush as her lips sensually caressed his ears; tried being the key word. "I." She blew a huff of air that sent tingles down his spine. "Want." Her tongue licked the warm flesh of his ear. "You." Then she drew away from him and forced him to look at her expression._

" _That doesn't answer my question, Haru." She smiled at his response; she knew his tactic because she employed it equally well._

" _Nicknames now, hm, Hachi?" His stare did not waver and she found herself delighted by how, regardless of his current state of affairs, he was unwilling to back down, even though he was in her territory. She extended a hand forward; he took it and followed, knowing exactly where they were heading. Their couch, he thought loosely._

 _More often than not, most of their meetings always hit a point that lead to the two of them sitting and talking on that particular piece of furniture, whether the depth of the conversation was heavy or not. It was on that couch that she had first comforted him during the loss of Iroha and the loss of his parents. That couch was special because, for some reason, it was a memoir of the fact that these two strangers could grow closer simply by the lessening physicality of their distance._

 _The two waited until they were comfortable before he inclined for her to speak. Today could not get any weirder to Hikigaya, but he supposed it was about to touch a whole new dimension of the word 'unknown.'_

" _I've always thought you were interesting, Hachiman." He knew that - she said so when she first met him - and he apparently continued to earn that interest by simply being him. It then occurred to him that no other person had held that prize for so long; Yukino did not count because she was like an 'on-off' switch to Haruno, where her motivations towards her little sister were fickle as a cat. "I just," she let out a sigh. "I just always thought that there was never going to be anyone who would match me - and actually, I still don't think that's you."_

 _He wasn't hurt by her honesty, but he was still a bit confused. She elaborated, "But despite not exactly being my equal, you have risen up to be someone who could be, if you ever so chose to be: and that's the key thing. You choose not to be my - no,_ anyone's _equal. You simply are. And that's so fascinating, so liberating; because you're different. You're a regular cynic with no special position from birth or any exceeding athleticism or intellect, though you are fairly smart._

" _You're competent because you desire to be so; you're active because, when, you want to be, and you do it in any field that suits your fancy whenever they coincide with what you feel is necessary. Borders and barriers are walls you jump over, bullets you simply avoid. And it's not that you don't acknowledge them, you simply just don't care."_

 _That was… rather insightful and something he was surprised to hear. With each sentence, his face could only flush a darker red. "W-what?" He wasn't an idiot, but it was strange to hear all of that come from Haruno's mouth. She laughed._

" _It's honestly just that simple - for once in my life." The statement was so_ genuine _, so utterly lacking in her typical deceit that it shook him to the core. It was a quick, easy response for her. Because it was real. And that scared him more than he was willing to admit, but it was also not entirely out there, if he was honest. It was the first time not concerning Yukino that he heard her open up to her very being, and he refused to disrespect the fact that she trusted him enough to be honest about something that weighed heavily on her shoulders._

 _Getting to know her was an unintended consequence of his friendship with Yukino, but, he would never trade it for the world - because he knew, deep down, that she was right. Because she couldn't be wrong. They did fit each other, and he wasn't stupid enough to say it was an absurd notion._

 _It became an evening of comfortable silence though the two bathed in a somewhat awkward slumber of words; he told her he didn't know what to say, but he would think about it. She never gave him the option._

" _Think about yourself," she cried, shedding actual tears. He blinked. "I want you. Can you honestly say that you don't find me attractive?" He turned away, a hint of red dusting his cheeks. "Please, let me just take care of you, Hachi." Her voice was soft. "Please."_

" _I-"_

 _It was evident how hard it was for him to formulate his thoughts; the struggle was personal because she was his friend, despite how their banter played out, and it was not something he wanted to take lightly - marriage, and relationships in general. Especially considering the fact that, by now, Hayato was one of his best friends and he knew, no matter how unrequited and impossible it was for Hayato to be involved with Haruno, it would be painful for him. But the logical, rational side of him also scoffed because Haruno belonged to no one; she was a free spirit, and she had chosen_ him.

 _To not accept would essentially be looking a gift-horse in the mouth, but accepting was also like the Trojans inviting in said horse. Either way, there would be pros and cons. He turned to look at her and he saw nothing but smiles on her face. But she was cunning, because she clearly knew how to tip the scales in her favor. After all, even while she was being genuine, she struck like a viper. Her next words had him pinned, and the both of them knew it._

" _Think about what this could mean for Komachi."_

* * *

It was sad for Hikigaya Hachiman, his wife thought, a lot of the time. On this night it was no different, but she couldn't bring herself to care that much anymore - too long and people got desensitized, and she was no different.

The cry of her child drew her attention to the brightest little light she had ever held: Hikigaya Hikari, the pinnacle of her marriage, and the absolute proof that, despite his wandering heart, she would always hold Hachiman in her hands. He didn't hate her; she knew that undoubtedly. A smirk drew itself across her face as she thought about how he proved just how much he didn't, and an empty sigh escaped her lips after. He was with her sister tonight, something that was, truthfully speaking, more than just painful.

It was humiliating for her to be out-charmed, outdone, _outclassed_ , by an someone who was less attractive than her, less intelligent than her, less strong-willed; and, more importantly, _not her husband's wife_. The beginning was mortifying because she couldn't exactly blame Hachiman for leaving one night after she had yelled at him for nearly the entire evening. It also helped that, despite his misgivings, he had come to her the morning immediately after and held her by the shoulders and apologized.

In fact, it was sweet; he knew there were two lines that were crossed, but he admitted that he would take the majority of the blame because there were just some things people shouldn't do. And he had avoided Yukino for three weeks afterwards, embarrassed about the entire affair - and those two weeks were absolutely miserable for him, she could tell.

When she gave him carte blanche, he actually locked himself in their room and cried half the day away; he went in during the morning and when she came home for dinner, he was still holed up inside. Haruno wasn't entirely lost because of the state of things, though. She had returned home and knocked on their door and he opened up, walked past her before she could blink, and began making dinner.

She knew something was going wrong because her stomach dropped, despite the fact that there was nothing wrong with everything that had gone on since she returned. An hour of silence had passed in between, with the two sitting on their bed, each reading their own book.

Then he asked her for permission.

It was humbling, actually. Despite all of his closeness with Yukino, he refused to touch her sister again until he had her permission; and she finally tasted the sourness of defeat, understood how much it pained him to have to make that confession. She was swayed by one line.

" _You will have all my children; this I swear."_

The bitterness and resentment dwindled after that; and so, she allowed him his discretions. Hachiman was a master of misdirection, but ever since they were in a relationship he had never once lied to her. His affair with her sister caused some powerful hurt in those early days of their marriage, but she had come to accept it as a necessary evil. A truth. He was never in love with her. He never would be.

Unlike what most people thought, he understood the fact that Haruno was, in some fashions, softer than expected; she had a dream she lived out - she married the one she loved, and she would bear his children. Still, she would never be the one to turn his heart and clasp it with his entire attention and love.

But she also knew that he actually did love her, in some capacity; they were friends. They were _genuine_ , as his younger self would call it. He told her so. It just happened that, despite everything she had done for him and he for her, Hikigaya Haruno would never, ever be the deepest relation he would ever have - it would always belong to Yukinoshita Yukino, and it had been for nearly two decades.

A bitter pill to swallow, but one that mellowed out once she recognized that he wasn't actively trying to hurt her; he was merely coping the way he knew best. It also helped that she understood how hurt Yukino must have felt for all the years, standing aside a rather select handful of acquaintances and even fewer friends, which included only one who could see what no one else could see.

Unlike her, Yukino's dream of marrying, or even simply being with, the one she wanted was beyond the notion of a pipe dream.

Her fingers traced the fringes of her baby's hair and she smiled at the sleeping child. She nuzzled her face against Hikari's soft skin and watched as she twitched and turned gently in her rest. It was so adorable; and, mercifully, to both parents, she had not inherited her father's eyes, even though it was actually the feature she loved most on him (it just wouldn't seem right on the face of a young lady, she had told him).

Hikari was a miracle, the living theorem and proof that Hachi was more than willing to express how much she meant to him. Hikari didn't force him to change his ways or turn a blind eye to any wrongs and faults of their marriage, but she allowed her mother to see what her father had always tried to make apparent in their relationship, the emotions he tried to convey: the equality of their best and worst, a relationship born from honest partnership and mutual understanding.

She tied the Hikigaya family together in a way that no other person ever would, and helped quash her fears and cement her faith in her husband.

But it wasn't just Haruno's fears that needed to be brought down some notches; Hachiman had been eating himself alive, from the inside out. He always felt like a failure, in spite of all the good that had happened to him because he was a 'failure.'

His trauma of being a defect was not as dark as people would expect, and she certainly knew better than most, but the problems came from the fact that his philosophy adopted the axiom that he would never amount to anything because he was less than perfect. It was something she struggled with as a child, but accepted as an impossibility; a twist on their upbringings, he once called it, because of the gaps in expectations. He simply hated feeling incompetent and unable to do everything for the people he cared for, and that was something that couldn't really be patched up.

But he was growing, and she saw it each and every day.

He fought, even though he was weak. He moved because he wanted to, made the choice to do so. He tried because he loved.

Hachiman didn't exactly love her the way he should, but he always did everything in his power to prove that he was a lover, too. He never once denied her anything if he could help it - another thing that she recognized was his acceptance of her love for him and the reality of his situation. After all, the man she fell in love with was, at heart, a desperate fighter who shook off all sorts of vultures and hunters. If he truly wanted anything else, he would find a way. That was who he was.

A breathy sigh of desire washed over her as she closed her eyes and smiled.

* * *

" _Will you be my best man?" His breath hitched as he heard his friend call out to him. He stared straight into Hachiman's eyes and saw no deceit, no hesitation, no conflict._

" _Who?" His gut told him preemptively; his eyes already knew._

 _He just wanted a little more time to lie to himself before reality crushed him like the bug that he was._

" _All we are is dust in the wind, Hayato." Hachiman was trying to avoid naming names, but he knew. He bit his lip and looked down, daring tears to fall. They didn't._

" _Why?" Another silly question; Hachiman was about to grow sick of his questions because of fragile they were - both of them knew that games were best played with two willing participants, two determined equals. But the shoe was on the other foot, as it had often been, and Hachiman almost always ended up the winner of their little contests._

 _Instead of responding with the words he thought he would say, Hayato heard him whisper. He blinked. He missed it. He looked back up. Hachiman repeated it._

" _Komachi."_

 _The hurt came first, and then the numbness. And then his innard exploded with a flame of envy, a leviathan desire that crawled through his frame, wracking his flesh with indignation and coarse judgment. That was it? That was all? Are you_ fucking _me? What did he mean? It didn't make sense. What was he talking about? Rationality escaped him at the thought of his motivations because apparently Hikigaya Hachiman was marrying_ Haruno _and all he could say for why he was doing it was his little sister?_

 _However, he was not rash or violent, though he felt the snapping of a pen. He tossed it aside and fell into his chair, closing his eyes as he did so, allowing the comfort of a slight disconnect with the visual of reality. He thought about the situation, thought about everything that mattered to Hachiman, and remembered that his parents were dead, recently so - college was hard with only partial scholarship, paying bills and supporting his sister were near impossible for someone of his status and there was no telling of how unstable his future was going to be._

 _It… it made sense. He thought it was absurdly dumb, but that was definitely his irrationality speaking; the pragmatist in him screamed 'Well played.' Hachiman prized his friends above the greatest gems in the world, above the 'petty squabbles of social norms and conduct,' and took extreme care of all them. They were sacred to him. But even then, they did not even infringe on the territory that constituted as 'family' to Hachiman._

 _Komachi was the one piece of family he had left besides Yukino, really. Of course he would… Yukino. Wait, he thought._ Yukino _. "Why not Yukino, then?" His heart skipped a beat._

 _Hachiman smiled a grim, bitter breath of defeat. "She didn't ask." Hayato snorted. The sarcasm was thick with savage, demeaning sickliness. He motioned for Hachiman to make elucidate, but his friend was not so easily deceived - he wouldn't be able to reject reality or even delay it; that was why Hachiman was here in the first place._

" _Hayato," he said. "Yukino's very belief in marriage was shattered since birth because of her own parents." Cue a deep wince. "And, truthfully speaking… she's in love." Raised eyebrows met that suggestion. Hachiman's face read murder if he didn't promise to keep silence. "With someone she'll never have." Ah. Shit, he thought._

 _It wasn't hard to realize, considering Yukino only had two friends, just who she was in love with. Before he could go down memory lane and remember just how much Yukino treasured her other friend, Hachiman took control of the situation with ease._

" _More importantly... Hayato," he said again, refusing to put the issue down. There was something he wanted to make clear, distinct, to Hayato, and he knew he wasn't going to like what was going to come out his friend's mouth next._

" _She asked me." It sounded so casual. There was no change in inflection. It was simple. And clean, too. He felt the statement pass by his ears, and it took him a moment to perceive that such a permanent revolution was so arbitrarily proposed, so readily executed on a moment's whim._

 _He tried to steady his breathing. His nails cut into his palm. His right hand clutched his left elbow and drifted down to the ring on his finger. He was shaking but he couldn't feel anything at all. Hachiman looked at him again and took a deep breath before admitting, "You know why she asked."_

 _He did. He never wanted to admit it, but he did._

 _Out of all the arguments, all the fights, all the losses, this one was actually one of the earliest that he had lost. Not that it made it any less painful, any less real, or any less important._

 _It was a bittersweet catharsis. He had grown up silver-spooned, he knew. But, even those who have everything always lost something. His was the chance to have the wife he'd always wanted._

" _I see," his mouth said. Because he did. He closed his eyes as his head turned upwards. His office never seemed so cramped, so suffocating before. He was a king of a crumbling castle; trapped by his pride and commitment towards a fallen kingdom._

 _His mind and heart were conflicted; the former knew that Hachiman understood he was in love with her, but his heart fed him the logic that Hachiman did it to spite him. A thought occurred to him and his stomach felt heavy again. "Is she pregnant?"_

" _No."_

 _He understood what his friend was saying. He had a feeling but… "When did she propose?"_

" _Yesterday." Hachiman looked away. Apology was written on his face, but it was overwritten by determination. He knew that look. He wore it whenever he was committing to anything, though he supposed it was an easily missable expression if you didn't know Hikigaya Hachiman for the man he was._

 _He knew it wasn't fair that he was angry. He knew it was unjust that he was jealous. And yet, he could not help but ask his last question. "Have you you slept with her?"_

 _His friend did not answer._

* * *

Hayama Hayato's wife kept nightly vigils, waiting for him to fall asleep just so she could see his expression of peace and keep it locked in her memories; Hayama Hayato himself, on the other hand, was tormented by the fact that that even in his sleep, he could only relive the darkness. It was a sad statement to say that humans had a neutral, gentle expression when they slept - because there was never any harmony in his dreams. While his wife created a cycle of images and memories, he only walked through mazes of the past and the confines of a shattered psyche.

Not many people could guess that he wasn't entirely sane. But not many people were Hikigaya Hachiman or Haruno. And for that, he was grateful.

The blankness of space, the Void, he called it, was an endless stretch of what could have represented the universe in its earliest of infancy; coincidentally, it was what constituted his mental representation of his 'self.'

Dark and open - everything he was not.

He knew that there was so much more to his life than the dreariness of the day-to-day; but the simple truth was that he stopped giving enough of a damn when he was locked into another choice that wasn't his - when he was dumb enough to get drunk, have sex, and knock up a girl; all at the age seventeen. There were no lies about it, and he had always told Iroha "Do not expect love from me."

Pity she didn't care.

He was her trophy, even though she only earned the fruits of her labor halfway through life and never once bothered to understand any more of his world, any more of him. The dark was soothing in ways that she wasn't. It was quiet, it was calm, and it had many things hidden from him, but none that he needed to worry about.

Hayato smiled in public but he rarely smiled at home, a habit that stuck with him ever since his earliest memories. His open rejection of her did far too little because she never relented. He was glad, in some ways, that he at least understood her true nature. He was glad that he was able to at least win against her in small victories; one of his crowning achievements, sadly, was his refusal to give her anymore children and her lack of desire for any that were not his own.

She lost their first child, the one that condemned him to a life of ruin.

He never bothered to give her even a glimpse of hope afterwards. Cruelty suited him, she whispered in his ear as he told her. He shivered under her ministrations. He had expected her to break, to cry. But she only smiled and kissed him passionately and forced him against the wall.

It was almost as if the child meant nothing to her.

She smiled when the shout had left his lips. His eyes widened when he realized what the child was to her.

Double-edged swords like that were brutal, but they were some of the better trades he could afford to make. He just never thought that there were no such things, at least, not against her. But he was wrong. In the place of a heart, there was hellfire, he was sure of it.

After that, she became like any another dart on the board and morphed into another petty hand above her pawns; a cold-hearted and ruthless puppeteer. Just like his parents.

The reality of their situation was a grim wake-up call from the world he thought he could escape. Escape, he thought. Escape. The blackness turned red, a simmering boil of emotions; his turmoil ran with human ichor and flipped a mental switch, allowing the world before him to flicker with change.

He briefly wondered if this is what Christ saw in the infinity of Hell: a wash of black, red, and white that left him feeling his mortal coil turn to dust in the wake of an even greater scheme of nothingness.

Pity that instead of three days' grace, he had to endure it as often as the sun set and rose.

Slowly, that nothingness grew filled; being alone in this blank comfort zone allowed him to sift through his emotions and filter them, let them run until they were dry, let him live in memories long past and hypotheticals of the unknown. Either way, it let him resist the present, the presence of his wife.

Issihiki Iroha was a curse upon him like no other, and she was perfectly suitable to be the wife of the person born into the shoes of 'Hayama Hayato.' She was attractive, physically and mentally; she was cute and endearing and transformed into a woman of beauty - she held a hand of guile and a bag of tricks that flourished into layers of plotted points. She cared for him almost in a worshipful way to the point that the only rationale she had to her was the irrationality of her desire for him.

It made him sick.

She 'loved' him. She _wanted_ him. Everything about him was hers, she would tell him. She wanted his children, only because they were a part of him.

And his horror only grew from that day on; he learned, that day, what fear really felt like. Not the threats that Haruno cast his way, not the indignation of Hachiman, or even the clean edge of Yukino's sharp wit. Obsession, he realized, made her almost as mad as him.

But obsession drove her to places he would never dream to touch, and while his pride cowered before her madness, his own pushed him to refute her and refuse as many of her whims as he could.

The Void flashed white with his anger and a sun birthed itself, raging with its newfound life, its youthful vitality, its desire to grow.

She made him hate himself even more than he did before, and the longer he could be asleep, the better; he could handle his thoughts about her more easily in here than out there. A positive was his lack of need to interact with her when he was asleep.

She was so different from everything that a person should be, he thought. His Void took the hue of a deep, mossy blue that reminded him of what people thought the ocean looked like. It reminded him of Hachiman, and he felt pity for his friend, but also anger at his stupidity.

Why?

He had asked him, once. What made Iroha so special?

Hachiman did not answer for the longest time, but when he did, he was still confused by how profound his friend's passion for her was, despite all the evidence that led both of them to think he shouldn't. It was illogical, he said. Honestly so. But the one thing he recognized about it was that it was genuine.

And he had known his view of their relationship differed from hers, but he didn't care: he needed her, he said, and she wanted him. He knew, that, there was always going to be somewhat of a rift or splice between them, but he thought that there was just something about her that called to him.

The best way he could describe it, he said, is that I'm in love with her. And I always will be.

It was a fundamental fact to the existence that was Hikigaya Hachima, Hayato understood. But he could never see why.

She was more viper than human, or redback and black widow. She lured his friend into her nesting place and took him by the neck. Only, she kept her food alive and toyed with him.

Hachiman had only smiled at him after his answer and asked, "What makes you, Hayato? Do you not see in the mirror what I see? A man whose life opposite of mine but so very much the same?

"I have grown to love my wife, you know," he said casually. "And while I wager that she is far less potent than Iroha, she is no less dangerous in her own mannerisms. As we are two of our kind, they, too, reside in rather alarmingly close species.

"If not for the fact that they are who they are, you could say that we have married the women we love - many of their traits are, after all, equal enough."

He turned Hayato's question against him with a simple proposal: why Haruno, then? After all, Hayato had decades of disappointment under his belt and enough years to warrant detachment that he should have, by all rights and purposes, attained long ago, too.

He never asked Hachiman ever again.

His lack of a response was something that infuriated his friend. It only served to prove that he was never ready to fight back when his terms were pushed against him. Another nail in the coffin that Haruno drove deep into his heart; another reason that he was simply "boring" in comparison to Hachiman's "interesting" existence.

It all drove him mad. Nightly so.

It was not his desire to prove Hachiman wrong that made him infuriated, or the fact that he was right. It was his tiredness and helplessness, his trapped everything that was forced into boxes of scattered category, a man who walked on eggshells and placed his own hands in far too many ponds.

Who exactly was Hayama Hayato and why was he more weak than strong? Who was the thing that drew Isshiki Iroha's curious gaze towards him, that made her think him godlike, that immortalized him in her view as the one thing as constant as all the stars of the skies, that built him to be an unconquered empire like that of Rome?

He was a waiting Atlantis, he thought. A mystery of myth more than facts, a man whose identity was diluted by the very waters he breathed in; a creature whose grip on reality was everything and everyone he touched, rather than his touch itself.

The Void-space was a sanctuary, a place of food for thought. But it was also an altar upon which he was sacrificing bits and pieces of himself for a greater cause.

Sleepless vigils were, ironically, found in his dreams, as if his brain refused to shut down, to allow him true rest. Slowly, but surely, his mental state was being chipped down; he acknowledged it. But the thirst for truth, for reason, and for closure all pervaded his faculties.

Just what pushed him to become this way, he always wondered. What made him so different? What made him so weak where Hachiman was strong, what made him unable to act or why he desired to preserve the status quo or just simply not cause trouble?

He did not fear the unknown, he concluded. He did not fear his family. He feared his wife, he lived a healthy distance of caution away from the Hikigayas and Yukino. But he could never figure out why his fear choked him. Even the things he wasn't afraid were sometimes too much. Those roads with a fork down the path always left him stumped.

Of course, his companion often laughed whenever they met up. The funny thing about the illusion of choice, he would say, is that there is still a choice. Whether or not it is to be made is not for you and I _now_ , but only when the time comes will we truly understand.

For a wizard is never late, nor is he early. He arrives precisely when he means to.

Except that Hayato, for all his smarts, wit, and charisma, could never lead himself, was never emboldened, and never took decisive stances or motion, and as such, his arrival was always delayed or too rushed, even when he made his way exactly on time.

His heart ached with a heavy rustle, which told him that he was to let his thoughts free, to let him be enveloped by the sea, the cacophony of sounds and memories and for him to finally drift off. The space around him flashed white again, mellowing with a blur of yellows and greens. For a time it stayed that way - a healthy time of spring.

He wished that he had halcyon days on which he could reflect; because spring always brought his thoughts back to the days in which he encountered Hachiman and Iroha. Spring was a beautiful tragedy. The birth and signalling of his beautiful downfall.

* * *

 _Ring-a-round the rosie!_

 _A pocket full of posies,_

 _ashes! Ashes!_

 _We all fall down._


End file.
